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Most Victorian tiled floors had a border around the edge with a repeating geometric design in the middle. Starting around the mid-1800s, tile became popular. Often, people covered wood floors with woven rugs to add more visual interest and warmth. Wood was the most common flooring, with many homes having parquet wood patterns.
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Victorian flooring further emphasized the era’s love for pattern and ornamentation. Another popular option was painting walls to create faux marble or wood-grained finishes. Many people applied wallpapers, particularly those with elaborate floral, leaf, and vine patterns. One of the biggest trends in Victorian interior design was wall decoration. Wood was one of the most popular materials, used for a lot of architectural features that pulled together decor. Decorative wainscoting paneling was also very common, along with stained glass and wrought ironwork.
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Many people embellished their homes with decor like elaborately carved crown molding or built-in bookcases. It is impossible to talk about Victorian design without mentioning architectural features. Others leaned towards Arts and Crafts style designs that had bulky, geometric designs meant to reference Tudor era furniture. Some people loved European rococo furniture, with its delicate, frilly lines. There was no single dominant style of furniture though. Many pieces had gilt, mother of pearl, or cloisonne insets to add color and interest to the pieces, and they were often carved very decoratively. Victorian furniture tended to have a lot of excess ornamentation. Most people think of darker, muted colors when they picture Victorian color palettes, but bright shades can be just as appropriate as long as they are used with Victorian-style furniture and decor. Towards later periods, when cleaner gas lighting became possible, brighter colors and pastels became trendy. These shades were useful because most homes were heated by coal fires, and the dark colors hid any lingering smoke and ash. In the earlier parts of the era, dark, jewel tones like burgundy, emerald green, navy blue, and deep brown were popular. The first step towards any authentic Victorian design colored. Here are some of the key hallmarks of Victorian design. However, certain distinctive features show up again and again in Victorian homes. So what did the average Victorian home look like? The period involved a lot of focus on trendiness and individualism, so there was a lot of change and variety. People started to create distinctive interior styles, like Arts and Crafts or the Aesthetic movement, to show off their style. Trends traveled all over the world, with motifs from cultures like Egypt, Greece, and Asia becoming popular. Thanks to new publications like The Ladies Home Journal, the idea of design trends, with the various decor being “in” or “out” for each season, started to develop. The design moved from just being a way to showcase wealth and turned into a way of showcasing one’s personal style. Victorian design was also heavily influenced by increasing globalization and communication. These trendy new designs quickly showed up in wallpapers, curtains, and upholstery, leading to cheerful, colorful homes for Victorian people. Thanks to new printing and weaving techniques, these strong colors could be used to craft stunning plaids, stripes, and florals. However, in the Victorian era, aniline dyes were invented that could create strong colors like deep purples and glowing yellows. For centuries, all the color in a home came from vegetable-based dyes that had soft, muted, earth-toned colors. For the first time in their lives, people were able to get all the beautiful objects they wanted, so they stuffed their homes with furniture, hung art on every wall, and loaded down every shelf, sideboard, and table with decorative items.Īnother big change that influenced Victorian design was new painting and dying technology. This led to the characteristic “busy” look of Victorian design. As factories gained the ability to easily and cheaply create furniture, art, and fabric, common decorative arts became a lot more accessible to the common person. One of the biggest influences on Victorian design was the industrial age. Understanding the cultural and technological changes of the Victorian era provides a lot of fascinating insight into how the period’s interior design developed. Known for its ornate and elaborate decor, Victorian-era design continues to have an influence on modern design ideas. As technology made mass production and global communication possible, interior design went from being a hobby for the rich to a part of everyday life for the common person. Ranging from the 1830s to the 1900s, the Victorian era was a time of innovation and creativity. Everything You Need to Know About Victorian Interior Design
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